Rabbi's Blog

Many have thanked me for posting the video of the Rebbe last week and told me how inspiring and moving it was for them to watch it. Today, I'd like to share with you a short video clip that perhaps will tell you a bit more of who the Rebbe was.

As you may know, at the age of 86, due to the many thousands who wanted to see the Rebbe, he started a new practice of opening his door on Sunday morning to anyone who wished to see him. The Rebbe did it every single Sunday until he fell ill at the age of 90.

The Rebbe would stand for 6-7 hours with no break (!) and see thousands of people, to which he would give a dollar to give to charity and respond to their requests and questions. In the following one minute clip you will see what the Rebbe answered to someone who told him "Rebbe! You are amazing!"

I'm writing to you from New York, where I came in honour of the Rebbe's Yahrtzeit. Over the years, I have been asked many times about my connection to the Rebbe, and how does this individual still have such an impact on my life.

Instead of trying to answer by writing (which is very difficult), I'm inserting a ten minute video which I hope you'll find the time to watch. I believe it brings out somewhat of who the Rebbe was and is to so many people:

Following the picture I included last week of my grandfather in the palace with the King of Belgium, many asked me to share the background to this occasion.

It was a few months ago that my grandfather, Rabbi David Lieberman, the senior of European Rabbis and the Chief Rabbi of Antwerp, got the invitation to the King's palace.

Rabbi Lieberman, who was serving as Rabbi for close to seventy years, was invited in honour of his 90th birthday to a kosher lunch that was catered last week at the king's palace. My Zaidy, whose mother was brutally murdered by the Nazis in the streets of Belgium, received the highest honour that a citizen of that country can get.

Last week I called my mother to find out how the meeting went. My mother told me that she called her father with the same question, and this was his response: "The visit was OK, it's past, it's over, but Shavuos - Shavuos was really wonderful!"

What a powerful lesson. Inner joy doesn't come from honours, it comes from meaning, and for that we don't need to be invited to meet kings. We were invited already to join the Creator in repairing the world, on Shavuot, some 3327 years ago.